You are presumably (but demostrably) unfamiliar with the term straw man.
Oh, I'll NEVER forget you, scarecrow....
Posted on 06/13/2003 6:22:01 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
After attending the Confederate Memorial Day service on June 1 in Higginsville, I found myself believing our nation should be ashamed for not giving more respect and recognition to our ancestors.
I understand that some find the Confederate flag offensive because they feel it represents slavery and oppression. Well, here are the facts: The Confederate flag flew over the South from 1861 to 1865. That's a total of four years. The U.S. Constitution was ratified in April 1789, and that document protected and condoned the institution of slavery from 1789 to 1861. In other words, if we denigrate the Confederate flag for representing slavery for four years, shouldn't we also vilify the U.S. flag for representing slavery for 72 years? Unless we're hypocrites, it is clear that one flag is no less pure than the other.
A fascinating aspect of studying the Civil War is researching the issues that led to the confrontation. The more you read, the less black-and-white the issues become. President Abraham Lincoln said he would do anything to save the union, even if that meant preserving the institution of slavery. Lincoln's focus was obviously on the union, not slavery.
In another case, historians William McFeely and Gene Smith write that Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant threatened to "throw down his sword" if he thought he was fighting to end slavery.
Closer to home, in 1864, Col. William Switzler, one of the most respected Union men in Boone County, purchased a slave named Dick for $126. What makes this transaction interesting is not only the fact that Switzler was a Union man but that he bought the slave one year after the issuance of the Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Of course, history students know the proclamation did not include slaves living in the North or in border states such as Missouri.
So if this war was fought strictly over slavery, why were so many Unionists reluctant to act like that was the issue?
In reviewing the motives that led to the Civil War, one should read the letters soldiers wrote home to their loved ones. Historian John Perry, who studied the soldier's correspondence, says in his three years of research, he failed to find one letter that referred to slavery from Confederate or Union soldiers.
Perry says that Yankees tended to write about preserving the Union and Confederates wrote about protecting their rights from a too-powerful federal government. The numerous letters failed to specifically say soldiers were fighting either to destroy or protect the institution of slavery. Shelby Foote, in his three-volume Civil War history, recounts an incident in which a Union soldier asks a Confederate prisoner captured in Tennessee why he was fighting. The rebel responded, "Because you're down here."
History tends to overlook the South's efforts to resolve the issue of slavery. For example, in 1863, because of a shortage of manpower, Lincoln permitted the enlistment of black soldiers into the Union Army. Battlefield documents bear out the fact that these units were composed of some of the finest fighting men in the war. Unfortunately for these brave soldiers, the Union used them as cannon fodder, preferring to sacrifice black lives instead of whites.
These courageous black Union soldiers experienced a Pyrrhic victory for their right to engage in combat. However, history has little to say about the South's same effort in 1865. The Confederacy, its own troop strength depleted, offered slaves freedom if they volunteered for the army.
We know that between 75,000 and 100,000 blacks responded to this call, causing Frederick Douglass to bemoan the fact that blacks were joining the Confederacy. But the assimilation of black slaves into the Confederate army was short-lived as the war came to an end before the government's policy could be fully implemented.
It's tragic that Missouri does not do more to recognize the bravery of the men who fought in the Missouri Confederate brigades who fought valiantly in every battle they were engaged in. To many Confederate generals, the Missouri brigades were considered the best fighting units in the South.
The courage these boys from Missouri demonstrated at Port Gibson and Champion Hill, Miss., Franklin, Tenn., and Fort Blakely, Ala., represent just a few of the incredible sacrifices they withstood on the battlefield. Missouri should celebrate their struggles instead of damning them.
For the real story about the Missouri Confederate brigades, one should read Phil Gottschalk and Philip Tucker's excellent books about these units. The amount of blood spilled by these Missouri boys on the field of battle will make you cry.
Our Confederate ancestors deserve better from this nation. They fought for what they believed in and lost. Most important, we should remember that when they surrendered, they gave up the fight completely. Defeated Confederate soldiers did not resort to guerrilla warfare or form renegade bands that refused to surrender. These men simply laid down their arms, went home and lived peacefully under the U.S. flag. When these ex-Confederates died, they died Americans.
During the postwar period, ex-Confederates overwhelmingly supported the Democratic Party. This party, led in Missouri by Rep. Dick Gephardt and Gov. Bob Holden, has chosen to turn its back on its fallen sons.
The act of pulling down Confederate flags at two obscure Confederate cemeteries for the sake of promoting Gephardt's hopeless quest for the presidency was a cowardly decision. I pray these men will rethink their decision.
The reality is, when it comes to slavery, the Confederate and United States flags drip with an equal amount of blood.
And according to Jefferson, they couldn't. Those territories were not to Virginia as the colonies were to England. Yes, Virginia played a role in their creation just as England had with the colonies, but at a previous point in time, they had become their own jurisdictions and, presuming self government as a right, did not belong to their "older brothers" elsewhere.
You are presumably (but demostrably) unfamiliar with the term straw man.
Oh, I'll NEVER forget you, scarecrow....
The Confederates did indeed try to overthrow the law of the land (the Constitution and federal law) in the South.
No more so than the American *revolutionaries* of the 1770 were trying to overthrow the British crown government and take over Great Britain to rule as an American colony.
Today, with the advantage of hindsight, it sometimes seems like they were a bit short-sighted....
-archy-/-
General Nathan Bedford Forrest makes a much better example for your case. But in either example, do not confuse professional contempt with hatred, nor accrue the obliquy for the perfidy and hypocracy of the totalitarian unionist leadership to the generally respected common soldiers in their commands.
-archy-/-
There is a difference between overthrowing a tyranny (represented by the British crown) and walking away because you didn't like the result of a national election. Please don't compare Jeff Davis and his attempted slavautocracy with the founders of this great country.
Here's one taken from a source used currently as a reference to the military antecedents of the Tuiskegee Airmen, as were the *Buffalo Soldiers* of the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the Louisiana Battalion of Free Men of Color [See: McConnell, Roland C. Negro Troops of Antebellum Louisiana: A History of the Battalion of Free Men of Color, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press]
"Negroes in the Confederate Army,"Journal of Negro History, Charles Wesle, Vol. 4, #3, (1919), 244-245: "Seventy free blacks enlisted in the Confederate Army in Lynchburg, Virginia. Sixteen companies of free men of color marched through Augusta, Georgia on their way to fight in Virginia."
-archy-/-
Including the present-day state of Kentucky, and parts of Indiana, among others:
Why bother? It's so much easier to compare the power grab by former railroad lawyer Lincoln to the porphyria-maddened English King George III....
I don't believe I have ever made a claim about numbers and, quite honestly, do not believe that such a claim could ever be made beyond rough estimations. The reason for this is due to the extremely incomplete records on the confederate side in general.
Is there any mention in U.S. Army accounts of that regiment of black rebels near Saylor Creek?
In all honesty, I do not know. There are written accounts of it quoted at the site in addition to that newspaper account, but I did not write down their location in the records when I was there. There are about 100 volumes in the War of the Rebellion set, and the sum of them represents only about 10% of the entire US government records collection on the war. They have CD-roms of it that are searchable by word, but these are expensive and I do not have one. The remainder of the records are mostly in the Union Provost Marshall collection, which is almost entirely on microfilm without any particular index except for, in some cases, last name. So if I had to take a guess, I would say yes - it is likely that an account of that battle exists in the official records and it may be the account that is on the historical marker there.
What was its designation -- e.g., the 1st Virginia CSA Colored Regiment? Which Confederate officer commanded it? Which other Confederate officers were in it?
They were called "Turner's Richmond brigade" after their location of muster and commander, Major Thomas P. Turner. The group was mustered in Richmond on March 11 and March 21st at a site recorded as "Smith's Factory." The surviving records of their muster don't list a numerical designation and it is possible that they did not have one (Another group mustered at the time was known similarly as Chambliss' Winder-Jackson Battallion, so this was not uncommon).
As best I can tell, they were under the command of Fitzhugh Lee at the time of the battle. The combat occurred on April 4 between Amelia and Sailor's Creek. It consisted of two assaults by a union calvalry unit (The first was repulsed and the second pushed through).
Did the black veterans of the regiment get Virginia state pensions as did white rebel veterans?
I haven't checked the pension records for Virginia, but it is probable. Several hundred blacks in other states recieved confederate pensions and I do have lists of those records. They are especially frequent in Tennessee, which had accepted blacks into the state militia since June 1861.
Where is the roster of the regiment?
Either buried deeply amidst literally millions of documents in the national archives, or lost. The only records they have found to date, aside from accounts of the battle, repeat the muster details I stated above.
Again, it was known as "Turner's Richmond Brigade" under the command of Maj. Thomas P. Turner, mustered on March 11 and 21st in Richmond at a site known as "Smith's Factory."
Does it appear on any rebel order of battle? Did Robert Lee or any rebel corp commander ever mention it?
Turner's writings mention it as do the accounts of the battle that are on the historical markers there. The muster on the 21st in Richmond is signed off by Turner and Maj. J.W. Pegram and reported under command of the War Department through Lt. Gen. Ewell.
Were there other Confederate regiments of black soldiers?
There was another Richmond unit that was in the part white, part black "Winder-Jackson Battallion." The blacks in it were known as the "Corps D’Afrique" and were under the command of a Maj. Chambliss. Their muster correspondence is similarly reported to Ewell by the war department.
Looking at the transcript of the documents again, it appeas that March 11 was a typo because the order itself mentions the law that authorized it as passing on March 13th. The date of the 21st is certain, because that is when the newspapers report the muster. The War Department dispatch reads as follows:
WAR DEPARTMENT,
ADJ’T AND INSP’R GEN’LS OFFICE,
Richmond, March 1(?), ‘65.
Sirs – You are hereby authorized to raise a company or companies of negro soldiers under the provisions of the act of Congress, approved March 13, 1865.
When the requisite number shall have been recruited, they will be mustered into the service for the war, and muster rolls forwarded to this office.
The companies, when organized, will be subject to the rules and regulations governing the Provisional army of the Confederate States.
By command of the Secretary of War.
JOHN W. RIPLEY. A. A. G.
To Major J. W. Pegram, Major T. P. Turner, through Gen. Ewell.
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